Here Fred doesn't address my central point that "A subtext of this discussion is whether it is useful (or possible) to discuss the mechanisms that connect prices, distribution and the technical conditions of production separately from the role money plays in a market economy." In the "real world", whatever that is, commodities exchange for credit money, not gold or any other produced commodity; whether that does or does not invalidate Marx's analysis depends at least partly on what aspects of monetary phenomena one is trying to understand. All theorists make use of abstractions, and lots of different sorts of abstractions are defensible in different contexts. Marx, it seems, is entitled to make whatever abstractions he wants; Sraffa should be allowed to do the same, and we should evaluate the legitimacy of his abstractions on the basis of what he is trying to explain. Gary >===== Original Message From "Fred B. Moseley" <fmoseley@mtholyoke.edu> ===== >On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, mongiovg wrote: > >> I agree that to serve as MONEY a commodity must be scarce. But it need not be >> scarce to serve as a NUMERAIRE. A subtext of this discussion is whether it is >> useful (or possible) to discuss the mechanisms that connect prices, >> distribution and the technical conditions of production separately from the >> role money plays in a market economy. I've argued that it is both possible >> and useful. Naples maintains that it is not possible, but her (and other) >> efforts to integrate the two kinds of issues have, on the whole, not been very >> successful. >> > >But real world prices are exchange-ratios with money. If real world >prices are to be explained, then there must be a connection with >money. Sraffa's theory has no such connection, and Marx's theory does, in >the very first chapter, and emphasized throughout. Therefore, Marx's >theory explains real world prices, and Sraffa's theory does not. > >Fred
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